IT HAS long been Doctor Collins’s belief that drunks are made, not born, and that the ‘‘disease’’ of alcoholism is a fiction designed to help ‘hz weak-willed to jump their self- created fences. No booze, no disease. Goodbye. My diagnosis, freely dispensed to a disbelieving world, is based on years of watching drunks in action. Before the news business became a stamping ground for girls and men sporting earrings, some of the guys would keep a crock in their desks. But they knew they were drunks, not martyrs. National Councils on Alcoholism, and a lot of other false gods. Now, however, the cat has been cast among the pigeons by Pro- fessor Herbert Fingarette of the University of California, who has written a book called Heavy Drinking: the Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease. The medical and pseudo- medical business in the U.S. rakes in more than a billion bucks a year from the gullible. Boozer clinks abound, and the name of the game is bonanza.’”’ Times changed, thanks to the great growth of hypocrisy, and lots of media people whose names you know began peddling the disease bilge. They having been encourag- ed by doctors who were probably drunks themselves and wanted an excuse for their elbow-bending, and also by the shrink business and myriad misfits and moncy makers. The medical and pseudo-medical business in the U.S. rakes in more than a billion bucks a year from the gullibie. Boozer clinics abound, and the name of the gamie is bo- nanza. Respectability has been provided to all this witch-doctory by the Arncrican Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and their Canadian branch plants. Also by Alcoholics Anonymous, Councils cancelled DUE TO the Easter holidays, reg- ular council meetings of the North Shore's three municipalities have been cancelled. The next meeting scheduled for North Vancouver City, District, and West Vancouver councils is Monday, April 3. Check the April 2 issue of the North Store News for agenda items. The book seems to be a big secret here, so | haven't read it myself. But it has been written up in the British press, one of whose correspondenis in Washington says it has burst on the American scene ‘dike a Molotov cocktail.” The professor ‘‘commands a vast battery of research and analy- sis to support his view,’' it was stated, and his work has influenced a U.S, Supreme Court decision. Military veterans had been iry- ing to claim that their ‘‘disease’’ was the result of stress brought on by service life, ha ha. So they felt they were entitled to pensions in the same way as the wounded. In the Great Society there is no limit to some people's audacity. The U.S. government's view was that alcoholism was ‘wilful misconduct,”' and the court ruled that alcoholism may be so viewed. ‘*The disease concept of alcoholism not only has no basis in current science, it has never had a scientific justification ... stop drinking and you stop the physical effects,’’ says Fingarette. Exactly. Great minds do think alike, you know. The disease theory serves no useful purpose at all, according to Fingarette. It cannot even be seen as a useful means of prodding people into taking treatment. “It encourages alcoholics who do not enter treatment that if they have a disease there is not much they can do about it, apart from having another drink. It may also make some of them feel their behavior is involuntary when in fact it isn’t." In other words, it provides a useful psychological crutch for people who have no will power. They gain sympathy, too, by talk- ing about their harrowing experi- ences, just as if they were suffering from cancer or something. As you might guess, the pro- fessor is not popular with the disease pushers, who have describ- ed him as a dangerous man whose staff is extremeiy convincing to semi-literate readers. That's the snob ploy being brought into play. But it will be greeted with joy by the armies of eminentoes and others who prefer the disease crutch. Kitty Dukakis is the latest cx- ample, she having gone into a clinic. Before that there was Betty Ford, who sct up the Betty Ford Clinic. The disease theory is also useful to cheats and killers. Michael Deaver, the former White House deputy chief of staff, pleaded it was the booze talking whea he engaged in illegal lobbying. The jury was not convinced. But many a killer has got away with murder by pleading he could not control himself. It's all part of the breakdown of common sense, and its replacement by mumbo-jumboe PERSONAL BANKRUPTCY... Tequues professional hein. “FREE’ * COPY OF OUR BOOKLET EVANCIC PERRAULT ROBERTSON LTD. 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